Book Review: Tainted Tokay

Book: Tainted Tokay (Winemaker Detective Mysteries book #11) by Jean-Pierre Alaux and Noel Balen with translations by Sally Pane

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Description:

In between enjoying sumptuous food and wine, the Winemaker Detective grapples with deceit and deception in Old World Europe. France’s top wine expert Benjamin Cooker sets off to enjoy the delights of Vienna, a romantic ride down the Danube, a gourmand’s visit to Budapest, and a luxury train through the enchanting Hungarian countryside. All too soon, stolen wallets, disappearing passports, guides who are a bit too obliging, and murder mar the trip. Meanwhile, in Bordeaux, Cooker’s assistant Virgile faces an annoying rival and a mildew crisis in the vineyards just as Cooker’s lab technician is the victim of a mugging.



Rating: 4 stars

Review:

Tainted Tokay centers around two mysteries with the first following Wine Expert Benjamin Cooker, his wife Elisabeth, his friend and publisher Claude Nithard and Claude's girlfriend Consuela Chavez taking a vacation throughout Europe. While traveling around the group unwittingly found themselves being targeted by crooks.

Meanwhile, the second mystery takes place back in France with Cooker's assistant Virgile Lanssien taking care of Cooker & Co. while his boss was out of town. But tragedy struck when the company's Lab Technician Alexadrine de La Palussiere was severely attacked. She said it was from a robbery but her story wasn't adding up and it was up to Virgile to find the truth.

This is a good story, it's well written and exciting to read but the only thing it's not is a good mystery. I love the Winemaker Detective series because of the interesting mysteries and characters, the travel, the food and the little bit of history tacked on. But as far as the mystery for this book, it wasn't as good as the others in this series. The clues were too easy to spot and not to mention Benjamin Cooker seemed off his detective game. It's hard to see how Cooker and his group were so easily duped that they couldn't see the red flags before it was too late. There wasn't much of a mystery for Virgile to investigate because the story just unveiled everything as it went along.

There was one thing I found to be a huge disappointment and that was how Alexandrine was treated. It's great that she was finally given more attention but what was shown wasn't great. The writers treated her sexuality as a plot device as well as turned her into yet another one of Virgile's many conquests. It's bad enough that she was attacked then became a damsel-in-distress before turning into Virgile's latest love interest. This would have been the perfect opportunity to show that Virgile, who is a notorious flirt and womanizer, could be friends with a woman without them ending up in bed together. And not to mention, she had a tragic backstory that was tacked on in my opinion to add even more misery to her story especially when you find out who attacked her and why.

Aside from the mystery and the poor treatment of Alexandrine this is an interesting read. I enjoyed reading about the group traveling around seeing everything but in the end I just wanted more from the mystery.